


Of Errant Hackers and Ignorant Agents

by Stucky101



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Everyone Needs A Hug, Grant Ward Isn't Hydra, Hurt Skye | Daisy Johnson, Other, Post-Season/Series 01 AU, SHIELD, Skye | Daisy Johnson Feels, Skye | Daisy Johnson Needs a Hug, Skye | Daisy Johnson-centric, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Rising Tide (Marvel), no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:46:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27388168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stucky101/pseuds/Stucky101
Summary: "She knows what it’s like to be neglected, to be used for a couple of months then put back. She knows that her life has never been worth anything to anyone. When she met Miles she thought she finally did mean something. When she was incorporated into the team she had thought the same thing. Turns out she was wrong in both cases."A season 1 au where after the whole Miles ordeal Skye isn't forgiven by the team and a series of unfortunate events lead to her kidnapping and a very confused team.  *Important to note that Ward is not Hydra in this*Weekly updates so buckle in tight!
Comments: 88
Kudos: 215





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DaisySimmons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisySimmons/gifts).



> This is dedicated to the wonderful DaisySimmons, thank you so much for getting me into Shield! 
> 
> Comments and Kudos make my day so feel free to leave some :) 
> 
> Hope you enjoy and prepare for a bit of a wild ride!

Skye didn’t know what to do. Yes, she’d gone behind the teams’ back to alert Miles but that didn’t even really count as a betrayal in her mind. What was a betrayal was their blatant rudeness to her. Ward left rooms the minute she entered, Coulson stopped seeking her out, Fitzsimmons barely interacted with her, and May silently glowered at her. 

She knows what it’s like to be neglected, to be used for a couple of months then put back. She knows that her life has never been worth anything to anyone. When she met Miles she thought she finally did mean something. When she was incorporated into the team she had thought the same thing. Turns out she was wrong in both cases.  
Joining The Rising Tide had given her purpose. Then S.H.I.E.L.D had not only given her a purpose but a family as well. The last couple of months she’d been the happiest she’d ever been. And she’d thrown it all away. For someone who wasn’t even who he said he was.  
She knew it was her fault, that she had messed up, but she felt resentment building up in her all the same. All through her childhood she had harbored similar resentments. It was easier than being upset, like poor Mary Sue Poots had been. She hated feeling like this. Hated being the scared child wondering why no one returned her love. 

The helplessness didn’t help her mood either. Being unable to access electronics or talk to her team was killing her. Loneliness is another feeling reminiscent of her childhood. Which is never a good thing with her.

Sleep is impossible, but there’s nothing else to entertain her so she creeps quietly through the hall. She can hear Fitzsimmons in the common room, maybe watching a movie of some sort. She has plenty of experience escaping someone else’s notice and they don’t spot her, even as she slips right past the brightly lit entrance to the room. When she gets to the bathroom it takes a little searching but she finds the pills she wants and dumps a few into her hand. 

Once she’s back in her room she slides the door shut and pops a few into her mouth. The room is mostly bare but there’s a photo frame on the desk, with a picture of Fitzsimmons curled up together on the couch. It isn’t hard to slide the rest of the pills into the gap between the frame and the picture. 

The hacker curls into her bed like she’s still a vulnerable 5-year-old and not a hurt 20-year-old. She’s always slept like this, especially when she’s sad. She used to have a stuffed elephant, given to her by the first nice family she’d stayed with. She used to hold it tight and believe that it would protect her. It got beheaded by an angry foster father, which seemed pretty in line with her luck. 

The pills soon do their job and the world around her disappears as she nods off. She wakes to a cold sweat and a silent plane.

(I know this chapter is a bit short but I promise the next ones will be longer, I just wanted to get the ball rolling here)


	2. Chapter 2

There’s no explanation of any sort from her team (if she can still call them that) but there’s definitely gear missing. 

She’s ready to believe that they’ve been kidnapped and is preparing herself mentally to figure out how to get them back when she hears a slight buzzing from her comm, sitting innocently on the couch in front of the tv. She rushes to it, hoping that she wasn’t going to hear a ransom request. What she hears isn’t as bad as she’d feared but still feels like a slap in the face.

“Coulson watch your 10,” plays into her ear in May’s voice and she chokes. They’re on a mission? Without her? She knew they had been hurt by her “betrayal” but not this badly. Had Coulson and Ward honestly forgotten all that she’d told them about her past? It stung to be purposefully excluded from something important to her, and without any explanation either. They had even taken Fitzsimmons, “kids not cleared for combat”, but left her behind. 

Shouts echo through the comm and she listens intently, angry about the exclusion but not quite angry enough to want to let her team die.

“Fitz, you get that door open yet?” Coulson’s voice. 

“I can’t! The-” the rest of Fitz’s shout is cut off by an explosion nearby.  
“Well figure it out!” Ward screams as more gunshots ring out. Skye hears a yelp that seems to belong to Simmons, which is a good guess judging by Fitz’s immediate scream of “Jemma!”.

“Get that door open,” May growls and Fitz sounds near-hysterical in his answering shriek of “I can’t!”

“But I can,” Skye whispers to herself, pulling her laptop open and tapping rapidly at the keys. It doesn’t take long for the metal cuff-like bracelet on her wrist to vibrate, breaking her concentration, but she just shakes it off and continues typing. 

She’s just about finished opening the door she assumes her friends (sort of) are referring to when the bracelet sends a shock through her arm. She cries out and almost falls off the stool she’s sitting on as the current courses throughout her body. It only takes another cry from Simmons to get her back at work, even as the bracelet pulses harder and harder. 

Finally, the door slides open and she wants to slump into her chair and shut her laptop and rip the damn bracelet off but the team isn’t in the safe yet and it isn’t in her nature to give up so easily, nor to act that selfishly. 

“Okay,” she hears Fitz breathe out from the comm still settled firmly in her ear.

“Okay?” Coulson echoes and she doesn’t hear a response, just rapid breathing, so she assumes they’re nodding in agreement. 

Her hands tremble as she reaches up to activate her comm and she isn’t sure if it’s because of nerves or the leftover pain from the shocks. 

“Is there anything else you need?” she asks in a small voice, feeling strangely shy. 

She can practically hear them startle and she almost smiles. She would have smiled in different circumstances, or even if her arm wasn’t still throbbing. But of course, she isn’t living in  
different circumstances so her lips settle for a slight quirk.

“I think so,” of course May is the first to recover, and Skye wants to cry. She knew that they probably would still need her but the idea of the bracelet resuming its assault on her poor arms is a lot to bear.

Coulson should be able to control the bracelet though, maybe shut it off….. 

“Okay. But, um,” she hesitates, not sure if she really wants to ask this, but a twitch of her still-burning wrist settles the internal debate and she pushes through, “is there a way to deactivate the bracelet? Just for now but it would be a whole lot-”

“Yes,” Coulson cuts her off sharply, “but I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” 

“Please?” she whispers, hoping the emotion in her voice won’t carry through the comms. 

“No,” his voice is angry and she flinches, glad they at least aren’t next to her to see it. “Sorry, but no,” his tone softens a bit and he sounds more like the Coulson she knows and has grown to trust and she feels stupid for even reacting to the anger in his voice at all.

“Okay,” the words are so quiet that she wouldn’t have been surprised if nobody heard them. She grabs her laptop and slides to the floor, propping herself up against the table. When the bracelet activates again she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to hold herself up and the team will still need her. 

“So what do you need?” she wants to curl up in a ball and cry, not push through awful pain to help a team that seems to hate her. She really wishes she could be more selfish sometimes. 

“There’s a small missile launcher a few feet away from us,” May informs her, “get it online”. 

“Can do,” she answers, knowing full well its not a request. 

She flips open her laptop and as soon as she reopens her window of code the bracelet twinges. She winces at the spike of pain it sends shooting through her arms and reaches up to mute her comm. This is probably going to get messy and she doesn’t want her team to hear her if she does cry out. 

When she starts typing the bracelet sends a shock through her and her whole body flinches but it’s when she starts to type in the code that will activate the weapon that it starts to crack her wrists in half. It must not like her accessing something with the potential to be dangerous. She hears a tiny pop even before she feels a sharp pain in her bone but she resolutely ignores it. 

Skye just manages to press the bracket key to finish her coding off before the bracelet sends a final break into her wrist. 

Just hearing the snap is enough to make her nauseous and when the pain hits she actually throws up. Vaguely she panics, concerned about the mess she’s just made, but there’s too much pain to focus on it. She’s broken a wrist before, after a particularly nasty shove to the ground by a drunken foster father, yet this feels different. There’s the initial burning she remembers clearly from years ago but there’s a stinging sensation beyond that, like tiny needles are being dragged across every little break and fissure. Thankfully the wrist that snapped is her non-dominant left (although she can feel little cracks throughout her right) and she’s able to close the coding window with the slightly functional hand. Once the window is shut down the stinging subsides and she sags against the table in relief. In all her pain she hadn’t even noticed how her back had arched away from the smooth metal but now she can feel every tense, aching muscle. 

She allows herself a few seconds of rest, closing her eyes and pressing herself up against the cold leg of the table, enjoying the contrast to the burning under her skin. 

Unfortunately, the comm is settled into her left ear and her wrist screams in agony as she reaches up to unmute herself. 

“You okay now?” she asks, straining to hear an answer over the buzzing in her ears. To her overloaded and anguished mind the words are difficult to pick out but she does manage to understand that they are, in fact, okay and require no further assistance.

“Okay,” she slurs before letting the comm drop out of her grip, the sound of it hitting the ground echoing through the empty plane she’d called home for the past few months. 

There’s lots of suffering involved in dragging herself up to get paper towels to clean up the vomit as well as in the cleaning itself. But she’s spent far more then enough years in the system to know what would come if she didn’t. The logical part of her brain tells her that comparing Coulson to the awful people she’d encountered throughout her life wasn’t exactly fair but with her wrist still throbbing and hanging at a weird angle it’s hard not to. 

Once she’s cleaned up after herself she pops the earpiece back into her ear and listens intently to the yells echoing from the tiny pod. Coulson’s cry of “let us in” is barely audible over the background noise of shrieks and explosions but somehow she picks it out. 

he door is hard to open with her damaged wrists but she’s not one to give in to pain easily, especially when there’s something as important as the team’s lives on the line.

They burst through the door and she lets herself sink onto the couch, eyes trying their best to flutter close. She catches Ward’s frown and sideways glance at her and she can guess what he’s thinking. That she’s not the one who needs rest right now, that she did nothing. Or at least that’s what she assumes. Judging by the curl of his lip that assumption isn’t far off the mark.

It takes all her willpower to push herself off the couch and practically stumble into her bedroom but the team obviously wants time alone and she doesn’t have the energy to force her company onto them right now. 

Skye slides against the wall, tilting her head back to rest on the hard surface of the grey divider. The hum of the plane vibrates through the wall and buzzes in her head. She sits there for a bit, listening to the murmurs of the plane, feeling her breaths expand her lungs. It’s nice to have something stable to rely on, even just for a little while. Of course right as she thinks that the Bus jerks and her chin bangs into her chest. She winces and sighs. She could hear the team’s whispers slightly through the wall earlier but now there’s silence and she gets up to peek at them through the only-half closed door. 

They’re not exactly visible from her room but it’s obvious they’re eating together from the shadows they’re casting. The bright light is hurting her eyes so she slumps back onto the floor, slowing her breathing to match the rhythm of the plane’s vibrations. They’re just eating, they don’t need her there. And Simmons definitely doesn’t need her to bother her with her hurt wrists yet. So she lets herself nod off to sleep, crossing non-injured fingers in her head that her wrist will be better in the morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, I just like ending chapters with Skye asleep...
> 
> I know I said weekly updates but don't be surprised if I start updating more often; I'm having way too much fun writing this lol 
> 
> Chapters will hopefully be about this length from now on, sorry for such a short first one
> 
> I'm just getting started on the angst so prepare yourselves...
> 
> Thank you for all the comments and kudos, they make me really happy!


	3. Chapter 3

Her wrist is not better in the morning. It’s swollen and purple and her veins are jumping out from it. She forgets what had happened in the previous days, already having gotten herself used to the routine of life on the bus, and reaches out to get her water glass. Her brain takes a second to realize that she’s on the floor, not her bed, and that it was not a good idea to jostle her wrist like that. The pain registers just as her eyes find the injury and the world spins out of focus for a second.   
When the pain fades and her vision sharpens she winces just at the sight of her mangled appendage and she suppresses the urge to poke at the tiny bit of bone she can see peeking through her skin. She hadn’t wanted to bother Simmons the night before but now she can see that this isn’t something she can just brush away and ignore. Plus hopefully Simmons won’t be exhausted by the mission anymore having had an opportunity to sleep and her presence wouldn’t be such a nuisance. 

She spends a few seconds on the ground, trying to figure out how to push herself up off the floor. She settles on using her less injured right hand to prop herself up. Blood rushes to her head as she stands and she sways, leaning onto the grey wall for balance. Everything is too loud yet muted at the same time as her head soars from the sudden movement. Inhaling deeply, Skye feels her lungs expand and her chest rise, then blows out a breath and feels her chest collapse, hears her exhale whistle through her chapped lips.

It only takes a few more slow breaths to clear the static in her head and she pushes herself off the wall, thinking through how she’s going to ask for help. About a dozen different sentences seem promising and she feels ready as she shoulders the lab door open.  
She doesn’t get the chance to say any of them. 

“Skye. Do you need something?” Simmons asks, decidedly snappishly, the minute she hears the doors open. She’s dressed to work, wearing a white lab coat and the same outfit as the day before. The dark circles under her eyes and especially pale pallor of her skin speak to little sleep and since she evidently hasn’t changed out of the tight-fitted shirt and light blue jeans from yesterday Skye doesn’t think she went to bed at all. 

Fitz had looked up from the computer he was typing into when Simmons announced her presence but looked back down at his work when his eyes met hers. She tries not to feel hurt; he’s probably just busy, but the foster kid in her immediately jumps to the conclusion that this is a rejection.   
She falters at Simmons’s sharp tone and Fitz’s cool expression. “I- um, yeah but-,” she cuts herself off, “is this a bad time?”

“It is, actually,” Simmons answers, then turns back to her work. Skye flinches at her tone and accepts the message, grabbing a roll of bandages as she leaves the lab. 

When the door to her room is shut and she’s sitting on her bed, tucked away from her friends, a flood of relief washes over her. Which is awful. She doesn’t want to feel happier away from the people who’d been her family; made her feel safe and happy for the last few months. Sadly, she’d already learned several times over that the heart wants what it wants. She’d told Ward that she’d simply decided to stop wanting to prevent the heartbreak, and that’s true. But it isn’t the full story. She’s always had a huge heart full of love and hoped and hoped that if she just kept loving someone would love her back. Noone ever had but somehow she couldn’t stop loving. Kindness and love are a part of her, even through all the bad parts of her life, somehow staying untainted. She’d decided long ago to stop wanting but she’d never been able to. For better or worse she hadn’t been able to shut that part of her off. 

She’d always been upset about that but in the past few months she’d been glad she still had these parts of her. She’d finally come to acknowledge that they were maybe her best qualities. Now she wasn’t so sure.

Skye takes a long, shuddery breath, and shakes her head as if to rid herself of these thoughts. The bandages she’d grabbed are still clutched in her right hand and she goes to work wrapping her wrists. 

There isn’t much to do while she waits to be of use somehow since she can’t play around on her computer, so she devotes her time to examining every bit of her room. 

The desk drawers are the only thing of real interest, holding several different colored packs of post-it notes, some pens and markers, but what really catches her interest is the notebook/journal. It’s really a pretty maroonish-purple color with the word “thoughts” spelled out in white cursive letters. She doesn’t remember seeing it when she first settled in and she wonders if Coulson got it specifically for her. The thought brings a smile to her face, even as her injured wrist throbs. 

Her right hand is better this morning, even though her left isn’t, and the journal is looking pretty tempting. There’s a gold pen that draws her attention and it would feel really good to rant right now… 

She caves and picks up the simple booklet, inhaling the scent of new paper deeply. It’s not like she has anything better to do anyway. 

She’s never written in a journal before. No one had cared about her feelings enough to spare the consideration to buy one for her. Nor had she wanted one most of   
the time, although she can recall a year where locked diaries were weirdly popular and she’d been too shy to ask for one and had kicked herself for it every day that she didn’t have one while everyone else did. 

She expected it to feel weird and stupid, and it did, but after a few minutes the words came pouring out of her. She didn’t write in the traditional “dear diary” form, opting instead to write like she was writing a letter. It felt good to get her feelings out, to pretend like she was actually going to deliver these. If she did maybe they would understand. Maybe she could put in writing what she couldn’t say. She hoped this wouldn’t end like all the others. With “it’s not a good fit” and a sad sort of acceptance. No one’s ever tried to weather through for her but if anyone will it’s Coulson.

Her hopeful attitude manages to last another couple of weeks. Things aren’t getting better. She’d tried to see Simmons about her wrist several times, as it had obviously become infected, but there was always something more important she needed to be doing. Skye doesn’t know if the other girl simply didn’t realize what was being asked of her or if she was just that mad. Simmons doesn't seem the type to hurt others, intentionally or not, despite her anger, and Skye thinks it might just be that she didn’t make it clear that she needs help, but she feels neglected and abandoned and she can’t bring herself to ask properly. 

Skye stares at the roof of the still plane, missing the tiny tremors usually humming through it. The team finished a mission about an hour ago and her wrist is still throbbing. She still hadn’t gained enough trust to go out on missions, apparently, as she’d been stuck on the plane for several weeks. She was still needed for missions, just at a computer screen. Thankfully the bracelet had settled on only punishing her left arm, apparently deciding to focus its’ wrath on one area to strengthen the pain. Her left wrist is broken in 3 separate spots now, although the first break is no longer as exposed, having healed itself (in the wrong position). There are purple lines creeping up her arm from the injury and she’s worried about whatever infection she has worsening. 

With the absence of the plane's usual sounds, she can clearly hear the team laughing and eating. She knows she should probably go eat, but she can wait until everyone is in bed. Last time she went to get food the loud table fell silent, and although Coulson offered for her to join them she’s not dumb, in fact, she’s much more perceptive than most, and she can tell that her presence is a damper on their moods and the offer is empty words. So she’d shook her head wordlessly and taken her apple to her room to eat in peace. 

Her mind had spiraled into hopelessness and her life had turned miserable again. She knew that they were due for a refuel and check-over in a couple of days, which means at least 48 hours of break not at the Bus. That gives her a perfect opportunity to do what she’s best at; running away from her problems. She has her van keys tucked into the pocket of her favorite sweater and a small stack of cash she’d saved up from her Shield salary, which she was still getting paid even though her “probationary period”. 

It hurts to say goodbye to a home she’d had such high hopes for, but she’s used to dashed hopes and broken hearts at this point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the sort of cliffhanger thing...
> 
> I just finished The Devil Complex and wow.... I don't love how they handled it so once this is done I'm definitely writing a fic around that!
> 
> Thank you so much for the comments and kudos, they make my days!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! Last week was kind of hectic and I didn't have time to write. I have a longer chapter coming soon, I just wanted to get a chapter out there. Hopefully I'll be able to update in less than a week because I did cut off some writing I'd already done just so I could agonize you guys with a cliffhanger :) Next up, Coulsons' pov! (just a side note, remember that until Coulson's pov that will be in the next chapter the story has been told through Skye's eyes, and I purposefully made her an unreliable narrator.)

They have a layover two days after she makes the fateful decision to leave the Bus for good. It’s a perfect opportunity; almost as if the universe itself agrees with her decision. She doesn’t really have much, which is good because she can’t imagine how bad it would feel to have to pack belongings away if she had them. She’d collected a bit of clothing in the couple of months she’d been living with the team, sure, but those aren’t really hers and she isn’t one to get attached to material possessions simply because she has them anyways. She’s always tried her best to forget each home, let the faces blur into each other and the bruises fade. She could recount every hit or lecture she’s ever received, yet only a couple of names. But that’s not what she wants to do this time. Because it feels different. She can’t understand why exactly, but emotions are never really concrete so she just goes with her gut.

There are quite a few photos on her desk considering the little time she’s spent at Shield. She’s not in many of them; she’s never really been one for photos, having always been left out of them as a kid. She’s not very used to having photos taken of her and it feels like a bit of an insecurity. They don’t know it but it’s rare she lets anyone take a photo of her, much less she frame it and put it on her desk. They should be honored, she thinks, as she peers into her own eyes, forever staring out of the pale purple photo frame. That element of photographs has always freaked her out as well, having a version of yourself trapped eternally feels kind of freaky to her. Of course, not many people share this sentiment, and it doesn’t really tend to bother her that much with pictures of other people. 

There’s not much she can take as a remembrance of her time here, but a picture or two will work. She definitely doesn’t want to take one with her in it, so she tears her gaze away from the photo she’d been staring into; a candid shot taken by Simmons (who, as it turns out, has quite the love for photography). The photo features her and Ward in the middle of playing a board game, him looking frustrated and her grinning in satisfaction, eyes and nose crinkling up with her upturned mouth. The frame she’d slid sleeping pills into the first night is still there, displaying Fitzsimmons snuggled on the couch, covered in popcorn, Simmons asleep and Fitz watching her with the cutest expression of adoration on his face, blue-ish light from the tv reflecting on both of them. The moment was captured by May, of all people, which came as quite a surprise initially, as Skye had always thought of May more as the ice queen than the team mom. But of course, appearances can be deceiving.

The glass over the picture is thin and easy to just pinch apart, although it is a bit of a challenge for the still-untrained girl to break it quietly, especially one-handed. A couple shards slip out of her grip, landing on the desk with an almost imperceptible sound, which echoes through the empty, silent room. It sounds deafening to her ears, but it wouldn’t be louder than a pin dropping to anyone else. The broken glass now surrounds the picture almosts creepily, and it forms a bit of a labyrinth to maneuver around to pull the picture out. The corner of the picture snags on the sharp edge of a piece of the glass trap she’s accidentally made and she cringes as the glossy paper starts to rip. Thankfully the photo material is fairly strong and she catches her error in time to save any real damage from being done. She tucks the picture into the little backpack of stuff she’s taking with her and rakes her eyes over the other pictures, trying to find another suitable one to take with her. There’s one she really likes, but it’s of the whole former team, including her. They’re all covered in flour, Fitz especially, and Simmons is rolling her eyes at him while Coulson is captured in the middle of a laugh, smiling fondly at the pair. May is clearly in the process of taking cookies out of the oven and Skye is throwing chocolate chips at Coulson. She’s about a foot away from the group, maybe a quarter inch in the picture, so she slides the picture out of the frame anyway, which is much easier since there’s no glass in front of this one. The shards of glass sitting on the table are sharp enough and although it sends a sharp spike of pain through her injured left arm to hold it down, it’s not hard to use the glass as a knife and cut herself out of the photo. She picks up the scrap of glossy paper with her giggling face on it, bites her lip, and lets it flutter to the floor. It’s a monumental moment for Skye so the paper could have at least made a sound as it hits the hard ground, but of course, it’s too light to make a difference at all. She wonders if maybe she’s like the paper; slowly, agonizingly floating to the ground only to make no difference at all.  
That thought elicits a sigh from herself, but she can’t stop it from ringing through her head. She takes one last glance around the room, her room, before turning her gaze back to the floor and walking out of it for the last time. 

What she doesn’t notice, even with her down-turned glance is the shadow even the tiny slip of paper is casting onto the floor.

The keys to her van are in her pocket and she has a tiny backpack stuffed with the pictures, a bit of food and water, the little money she has, her laptop, bobby pins, and a knife. Once she’s settled into her van and far enough away that she can’t see the Bus anymore she brings out her laptop, ignoring the twinge of pain the bracelet sends through her arm. 

She could have disabled the bracelet long ago but she kept it on as a show of good faith and to stay on the team. Now that she’s finally separated herself it’s easy to disable the bracelet with just a couple lines of code, then use a bobby pin to pick the tiny lock in it. The bracelet is heavy enough that it does make a slight thunking noise, even on the soft floor of the car. It feels good to have the weight off but an even heavier emotional weight settles upon her in its place. Taking off the bracelet is the final foot stepping into place. If Shield catches up to her now, she’ll be treated like a criminal. And she doesn’t think Coulson will stand up for her as he did for Akela.

So she drives. And drives. And drives. She gets maybe 500 miles away from where the Bus is stationed, or at least where it was when she left. Her van is too distinctive, especially since this is Shield she’s dealing with. She really doesn’t want to leave it behind; it’s the first thing she’s ever owned for herself, and to her it’s a symbol of her independence and decision to leave the system. But Shield probably has a tracker in it and it’s the first thing they’d look for her in.

She ends up “borrowing” a sleek-looking car, all polished a new, complete with an obviously custom license plate. If the owner can afford to care so much about the appearance of their car hopefully they can afford to buy another one? Or at least she hopes so. She almost drives straight out of the lot the way she came before remembering how many cameras she’d hacked for Coulson to track people coming and going. So she opts to circle around a go the back way, then, once she’s a suitable distance away, deletes the feed of her van going in, and turns down the video quality of the feed of her driving off so her face is indiscernible. It won’t hold Shield for long if they’re really looking hard for her; it’s a rushed job and her hacking style is very distinctive. Plus this type of sabotage is really easy to undo in general. 

The next few days on the road are a whirlwind of paranoia and exhaustion, switching cars every 20 miles or so, making sure to hack and blur every camera within a 50-mile radius of her. She doesn’t even know how much sleep she’s gotten in the past 120 hours, just that it’s not enough (if her foggy vision and heavy limbs are anything to go off of). She wants to stop this crazy dance, let someone else take care of her, not have to worry about being hunted down.

She really should have been careful about what she wished for, Skye thinks, only 24 hours later, tied up and in a drugged stupor.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson's pov is finally here!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S BEEN SO LONG IM SO SORRY AHHHH
> 
> I had really bad writer's block and I kind of got caught up in other things while I procrastinated trying to get through it. Thank you to everyone reading and leaving comments and kudos, they make my day! I'm hoping updates will be more consistent now, thank you for being so patient with me in the meantime! 
> 
> cw: the next chapters are going to have some violence in them, (light torture), and idk if it's a big deal to some people but I did use the word sh*t at the end of the story.

Coulson is slightly concerned. May would tell him that slightly is the wrong word for it, but she isn’t here to tell him that. May has been off gathering information for the last couple of days, meaning that the bus has been on the ground for that time. 

The concern isn’t for May, however, since it’s simply a spying mission, no combat involved. Besides, the super-spy can handle herself. No, it’s for his newest recruit. If he can even call her that. The girl has been holed up in her room practically since the whole Miles fiasco. He wonders if she even knows that she’s been forgiven.

Ward is still acting short with her, but he doesn’t think that would be enough to drive the young hacker into hiding. It’s true that none of them have really made an effort to make it clear to her that they’re willing to forget about the incident. He’d thought that at least Fitzsimmons would reach out to their new friend, especially with how sympathetic Fitz is, but they’d been acting closed off to her as well. They haven’t really dealt with feelings of betrayal before, he speculates, so it would make sense for them to have a more dramatic reaction…

Still.

He wonders how the world looks from Skye’s eyes. He knows she’s resourceful, that she makes connections no one else does, and that she uses humor to deflect, almost like a shield. Beyond the obvious, though, he has no idea. May would probably be rolling her eyes at him if she could hear his thoughts right now, _“aren’t you supposed to be a top-tier agent?”_ she would say. She would be right, he muses, _I’m an agent of Shield, I can think critically when I want to!_

So he sits and stares at his fingers, feeling his forehead crinkle in thought, and tries to put himself in Skye’s shoes. 

He starts with the fact that she’s not only been in the system all her life, but also moved around constantly. A person’s childhood usually does tend to have an effect on people, everyone’s lives are built from the ground up. Her bitter childhood seemed to have only improved her character, something he found intriguing. He really hopes they didn’t ruin the optimism she stills manages to carry with her.

While she does seem to have distanced herself from the lonely foster kid she once was, he can’t imagine that her first reaction to almost outright objection to be sharing her company from the team could be positive. That still doesn’t account for the way she had withdrawn herself, in his mind. Skye isn’t so complacent as to just give up after a few sour looks and short words. 

So what could be bothering her? It could be the bracelet Shield had issued her… She had seen him present it to Miles as a punishment, but for Skye it was supposed to be an opportunity for redemption. Had she not recognized it for what it was? He regrets snapping at her that first mission. Thinking back on his previous words, he did make her out to be some enemy they had to keep reigned in. 

Her extreme reaction still doesn’t make very much sense to him, but he’s getting a headache and still hasn’t even begun to fathom the workings of the younger girl’s brain.  
_Leave the spy work to May_ he thinks, chuckling to himself.

Speaking of which…

The spy should be returning any minute now, so he should probably be focusing on preparing for her and what could turn into a hasty departure. Although, knowing May, there would be no conflict and the unfortunate victims of her incredible talent in espionage would be none the wiser of the spy’s work. 

When May gets back they’re due for a vacation and he hopes he can talk to the young hacker then, but for now, he settles on staring out the window of the Bus, watching for  
May’s return.

Of course, when she does return, he doesn’t see her. She drops from the ceiling, which Coulson can’t even begin to see how that’s possible, and is suddenly at his shoulder, leaving him with no idea how long she’s been standing there, and how she managed to get onto the supposedly secure plane. 

His eyes meet hers and he starts, his heart rate speeding up even as his brain catches up to his eyes and realizes that he knows the face.

He presses his hand to his chest and collapses dramatically onto the sofa. 

“You could have given me a heart attack!” 

May just raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be a superspy?” she asks pointedly. So the May he created in his head _had_ been pretty accurate, he thinks proudly. May’s sense of humor had changed dramatically after the events of Bahrain, and while it made him beyond happy to see her joking around again, it had taken him a while to feel like he still knew her, so he takes pride in that he’s familiar with her again. 

“Clearly _you’re_ the superspy out of the two of us,” he retorts, shaking his head at her as if it was obvious, not actually vocalizing, but implying a slight “tsking” noise. He knows full well that if he had decided to go full in and make the noise it would not have ended well for him. While she wouldn’t outright kill him (although if she really wanted she definitely could) she definitely has her ways of retaliation. 

So he quickly changes the subject when her lips curl in challenge.

“Fitz! Simmons! Ward! Skye!” he calls, turning away from his long-time friend, before he can say anything that will give her a reason to bring the full extent of her scheming talents upon him.

\Ward enters the room a few seconds after being called, but, as usual, the scientists take a moment before answering his call, although he’s lucky that they even responded. 

Half the time they’re too enraptured in their work to pay any attention to the outside world, especially when something is being asked of them. Skye usually had the honor of forcing them out of the lab, which she hadn’t seemed to mind at all. In fact, even it wasn’t necessary, she took it upon herself to drag the pair out of the lab and back to reality, to watch a movie or bake cookies. He had reveled in the friendship between the trio, proud of himself for choosing a member who so easily integrated herself into life on the Bus and got along with the other recruits for his team. He had had such high hopes for the team..

His thoughts are interrupted by Fitzsimmons filing into the room, chattering about some sciency concept that May would tease him about not understanding. They were clearly disagreeing about the topic, whatever it was, if the enthusiastic waving of their arms and rolling of eyes was anything to go by. Their debate cut off as Jemma slapped Fitz in the nose as she made an elaborate hand motion and Coulson cleared his throat.

They both snapped to attention then, although Fitz not-so-subtly elbowed Jemma in the side, and earned a stomp on the foot in retaliation. Fitz huffed a bit and crossed his arms but seemed to decide that it wasn’t worth the trouble to return the act with one of his own, and Ward rolls his eyes at the pair.

“As you all know-” he starts, but is cut off by a flick on the shoulder. He turns to the woman beside him, tilting his head in askance. 

“Skye isn’t here,” the spy says matter-of-factly, “didn’t you call for her as well?”

“Oh. Yes,” he chides himself internally for his foolishness and smiles gently at his friend, “can you go get her?”. 

Her gaze softens and she nods, which is as warm a greeting as he’ll get from her, and he takes it, happiness blooming inside.

She walks off and he offers a smile to the three agents in front of him as well, this one more in apology. “Sorry about that,” he shrugs, “guess I’m getting old.” Ward scoffs softly, then schools his expression as Coulson meets his eyes. But Coulson just laughs with him, eyes twinkling.

“She’s not here,” May suddenly calls from across the plane, right where Skye’s room is.

“Are you sure?” he calls back, the warmth in his chest giving way to cold, sharp, dread. “She could be in the bathroom?” it was meant to be a statement but it came out more as a question, speaking volumes to the fear settling in his stomach.

“Yes,” comes the response, and he knows not to doubt her. This is Melinda May after all. If she’s sure that Skye isn’t on the Bus then she isn’t on the Bus. Which scares Coulson more than he’d like to admit.

“At least she can’t have gone far,” he speculates as the spy re-enters the room. 

“Actually,” she starts, and he almost groans out loud. _oh no_ , “her van is gone, along with her laptop.”

That doesn’t bode well at all…

“Okay,” he says, slightly shaken, “we have a top-level, combat-ready agent, a super-spy, and two genius scientists. We’re bound to find her soon.”

As it turns out Skye is apparently incredible at running away. In retrospect, he probably should have guessed as much… with the amount of home-hopping she had done and the erasure of all online records of her he’d have been stunned if she hadn’t been amazing at it. It was near impossible to track the girl down, which was surprising only because the team looking for her possessed immeasurable talents and belonged to the world’s biggest intelligence agency. She had driven her van off in a parking lot not _too_ far from where the Bus was stationed, but after that they couldn’t find any trace of her, she’d obviously ditched the bracelet with the van, and it wasn’t until Fitz suggested trying to trace her laptop’s signal that they got some semblance of a lead. 

They all stood together, grouped around the holotable, watching Fitz trace the laptop’s movements down an insanely detailed, 3D map, hoping to get answers once and for all. 

“I can’t think with all of you staring at me like this,” Fitz’s heavily accented voice suddenly breaks the silence, and Jemma smiles apologetically.

“Sorry,” the biochemist offers, gently leading the group a few feet back from the table before returning to her partner’s side.

They can still see the map from here, but the tension in the air goes down a few notches without them all crowed so close to each other that they were practically sharing breaths. 

“Oh no,” Fitz breathes after a few moments, causing the rest of the team to rush to his side, peering at the holotable. It takes a few seconds for the location he’s reached to register in Coulson’s mind, but he gasps sharply the moment it does.

“ ‘Oh no’ is right,” the spy next to him mutters, as Jemma’s face pales and Ward’s scowl deepens.

The red tracks representing Skye’s computer’s path lead down the center of the holographic map, then to the outskirts of the mountains, right into a base known to Shield to be a Rising Tide base. _the_ Rising Tide base, actually.

“Shit”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN. DUN. DUNNNNNNNNNN
> 
> (and yes the team does think that she has decided to rejoin the Rising Tide, even if it's not actually a personal choice, poor Skye)
> 
> THANKS AGAIN FOR READING AND IM SO SORRY FOR THE LONG WAIT
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think, and if you have any specific requests or predictions about the upcoming chapters lmk! 
> 
> (This chapter was brought to you by my sister bribing me with candy to update)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, actually updating on schedule?? A miracle.
> 
> This one's a bit longer than the others, and I'm happy to say that it's pushing the word count over 10,000! Wow! I also can't believe the hits on this, THANK YOU SM FOR OVER 3000 HITS

Skye can hardly think. Which is quite debilitating for her, seeing as she really doesn’t have the best advantage in a physical conflict (maybe she should have been a _bit_ less lazy when she’d still been training with Ward). Her mind had always been her best asset, especially when she was a tiny little kid, even more helpless than she is now. 

Knowing that she could think her way out of situations had always been her mind at ease, which probably influenced her love and dedication to hacking. 

But now her mind is fuzzy and just as useless as her bound arms, which bothers her more than the slight cut of the rope and the drowning sensation induced by the fabric shoved deep in her mouth. 

She blinks her eyes open, hoping to observe the situation and find a way out, as she always does, but the light is blinding, even though she can tell the room is actually quite dim from the gray-ish hue, which makes her wonder how long she must had to have been in her drug-induced sleep for her eyes to process the light that way.

Since her eyes are apparently useless as well, for as long as the drugs are in her system at least, she settles for scanning her brain for answers as to how she managed to get herself into this situation in the first place. 

Trying to think sends a stabbing spike of pain through her head, but she weathers through. 

There had been pain, a broken wrist, red and green lights blurring into each other, a familiar face, a burning pain as a slight buzzing rang through the air, a feeling of betrayal, and falling, falling, falling, a prick in the crook of her elbow, bright lights, laughter, but not of the kind sort, and gasping and choking, an arm shoved across her throat, burning cheeks, and spiraling into darkness, spiralling, spiralling, spiralling.

She would have shaken her head as if to rid herself of those memories and phantom pains if she hadn’t known that the motion would cause immense pain.

As it was her body seemed to be taking the memories, however blurred and short, as its reminder that it was hurt, her wrist twinged, as did her ribs (buzzing buzzing buzzing), and the gag started to feel like choking on her own breath once again.

The thought brought her attention to the shortage of air in her lungs, and she choked. The fabric is drowning her, scratching at her throat, stealing her breath, and she just needs to _breath_. But she can’t and the world is spiralling once again, bright white light replacing the gray, her strangled attempts at breaths filling the room, and this is how it’s going to end. 

After everything, every situation she had slithered her way out of, every bruise she’d weathered through, every door she’d opened for herself, she was going to die alone, tied to a chair, choking on her own spit. She wants to cry but can’t spare the breath. 

Then the pressure releases and fabric drops to her neck, her mouth freed and able to take in gulps of air, which somehow taste stagnant, but she’ll take it over strangling any day. It’s only once she catches her breath that she realizes that there must be another person in her presence, who’d taken off the gag.

So she manages to rip her eyes open, huge brown irises darting around the room. The light doesn’t seem so bad now, but the sharp pin pricks of brightness still worsens her headache. It wasn’t even worth opening her eyes, since she can’t see anything but a dimly lit room with plain gray walls. The room is entirely square and closed off, with no window, the only light source being a dingy flickering flight hanging from the ceiling. The person must be behind her, she figures, so she turns her head to look at them, but rough fingers pinch her chin and force her head straight forward.

She starts to make a sound of protest, but stops when the fingers squeeze tighter,

“Keep quiet, girl, or the gag goes back on,” his voice is gravelly, just as rough as his grip, and she bites her lip, letting the noise die in her throat.

He releases her and she strains her ears to follow his footsteps, which are light enough that it’s no wonder she’d previously missed his presence, especially with her very compromised state of mind.

She can tell by his muffled breathing, barely discernible from her own, that he’s a few feet behind her, and she wishes that either of them were casting a shadow; that would make it so much easier to survey the room and any other people that could be present. 

But, alas, the dirty light fixture barely casts enough light to see her own legs, taking away that possibility,

She looks down at her legs, surprised to find them mostly bare. She had been wearing jeans as far as she could remember, as well as a soft leather jacket and a blue t-shirt. The jeans were still on but crudely ripped right past her knees, and her jacket had been taken as well.

The room is fairly spacious, but so closed off that she has to make a conscious effort not to let claustrophobia set in. It’s a depressing place, in all honesty. The walls are the same color as the ground, which is smooth concrete that she can feel with her feet, which are apparently also bare. There are chains on the opposite wall from her, one pair hanging from the ceiling and another fastened to the seam where the wall meets the floor, but other than that the room is bare (ignoring a small splash of dried blood on the ground which she’s trying very hard not to think about).

She’s never been squeamish around blood, considering her past in the system, but the idea of being so at the mercy of whoever had captured her brought fear rising to the surface, and she can’t let that fear get a hold of her if she wants any chance of escape.

She tugs slightly against the rope binding her wrists behind her, holding back a hiss as the rope rubs onto the already injured appendages.

The man, who seems to be there to guard her, immediately puts a stop to her test of the bonds, hitting her shoulder none-too-lightly with what she guessed to be some sort of metal baton. If only she could see him, then she would have known what was coming. “ _That's probably the point_ ” she muses, frowning.

“Leave those alone,” comes the rough voice, “unless you’d prefer those?” the baton points over her shoulder to the chains hanging from the ceiling.

“No thank you!” she says quickly, prompting the man to whack her other shoulder with the baton, although at least she’d been expecting it this time. 

“No talking,” his words are sharp and direct and she pouts exaggeratedly, knowing full well that the effect is lost on him, seeing as she’s facing forward and he’s behind her.

“Awwwww but I love talking,” she whines teasingly, happy to hear a slight growl in response, less happy when the glorified stick strikes her in the ribs. The blow hurts more than the others, and her brain flashes back to the strange buzzing sound, a familiar voice she _just_ can’t quite place. 

It’s all quite disorienting and she closes her eyes, letting the dizziness from the pain fade.

She hadn’t even realized that new voices had entered the room until fingers once again pinched her chin and tilted it, though these are softer, even though their grip is rough. The owner of the hand actually came into her view this time, pressing her face so close to Skye’s that their noses almost touched, and the younger girl crossed her eyes, unconsciously trying to look at the new object in close proximity to her face. Bad idea. Dizziness sweeps over her once again, but this time she doesn’t allow herself to relax, forcing herself to stay on alert.

The other girl glares into her eyes a few seconds more, then leans back and nods to someone out of Skye’s line of vision. Now that the woman isn’t so close she can look over her. Her hair is a silky raven color, stick-straight with slightly curved bangs over her small forehead. Her piercingly green eyes are small and almond-shaped, and her face is pinched into a frown.

The frown changes into a predatory smile as she notices Skye’s gaze on her.

“What are you looking at, doe eyes?” she demands, her voice cool and measured, contradicting her passionate words. Coulson had once described her in a similar manner, the hacker recalls. She liked it much better coming from him, and not full of venom from this severe woman, even though she had complained about the comparison, protesting that _she is very threatening thankyouverymuch_. 

She feels about as threatening as a doe right now, but she rolls her eyes, 

“What do you _think_ I’m looking at,” she challenges, only half paying attention, still trying to place the other girl.

A slap across the face snaps her out of her thoughts, and she’s tempted to make a snarky comment, but refrains.

“Oh!’ she cries out, barely noting the way the other girl recoils, clearly having thought Skye’s silence to mean she was intimidated, “I know who you are!”. The face finally clicked into her memory and Skye wonders how she hadn’t realized sooner. “You’re the leader of The Rising Tide!”

“Indeed I am,” the green-eyed girl sneers, “took you long enough. And here I thought you were a devoted member to The Rising Tide.”  
Skye’s stomach drops at the implications.

“Is that why you kidnapped me?” she asks, “revenge? Retribution?” although that wouldn’t explain why their _leader_ was addressing her, and not someone lower on the food chain.

She laughs. Actually laughs. “Not exactly,” she brought her face closer to Skye’s once again, “see you have something I don’t,” Skye’s face contorts in confusion, “a way into Shield”.

That made sense. Except... “In case you hadn’t noticed I’m not on very good terms with Shield right now, so I can’t really help you,” not that she would if she could. She may have had a falling out with the organization but she still wasn’t willing to give The Rising Tide a way to hurt others.

“Oh but you can,” the other girl finally draws her face back, smiling hungrily, “you know how to get past their firewalls,” oh. Sh*t. That’s true. 

“Do I?” she hedges.

The leader just smiles, “if you won’t do it of your own accord I’ll make you _beg_ for the chance to help me, just for a small respite from the pain,” she hisses, never dropping the cold smile.  
She tosses her hair over her shoulder and walks out of the small room briskly, flicking her hair into Skye’s face as she passes.

“You know what to do,” she intones to the guard (guards? She still can’t tell) at the door.

Something hits her hard in the back of her head and an explosion of pain erupts, the dazzling white agony blinding her.

When she wakes up she’s still in the room, but she’s no longer in the chair. Instead, her arms are bound above her, held by the chains she’d seen earlier. She’s on her knees, head hanging down, and the chains aren’t putting much pressure on her wrists, luckily, but when she raises her head she can see that the metal links are threaded through a hoop fastened to the low ceiling, the slack dangling only a few feet away from her, fixed to the ground with a leather strap. So if the loose chain was pulled, her wrists would be yanked up.

She can now look over her wrists, even if she has to crane her neck to do it. By the mostly-healed skin she concludes that she had been drugged for a long while longer than she’d hoped. At least they aren’t in pain anymore, especially since she suspects that the chains are set up as they are so they can force her to hold her entire body weight with her arms.  
Her ribs throb, and she searches her mind for the origin of whatever injury was there, but the blow to her head hadn’t done her mind any favors and she drew a blank, along with a piercing burst of pain as her head pulses.  
Just as she’s giving the chains an experimental pull (to no avail) the door to the room swings open. She startles, not having even seen the door. The whole room is the same shade of gray, and the door melts seamlessly into the wall. _I’m going to lose my mind here_ the thought comes suddenly, unbidden, and she winces.

Her gaze flicks over the figures, not recognizing any of them, until it lands on muted green eyes.

She jerks against her bonds, “you!” there’s a bit of regret in his eyes, but he only nods and gives her a half-smile. The familiar face clicks everything into place and she closes her eyes as her head spins with the force of the memories.

A taser buzzing against her side, filling her body with electric agony, those same green, hollow eyes. She can almost taste the copper blood again, as Miles whispers in her head “just give up. It’ll be over soon.”

“You- you-” she can’t even get the thought out around her fury and betrayal, “I hate you!” she finally manages to cry out, ignoring how they sting her throat. They’d been friends for so long, only for him to willingly do this to her?? 

“I’m sure you do,” Miles sounds amused, which infuriates her to no end.

“I thought we were friends!” She can hear the emotion rampant in her voice, so it’s an unpleasant surprise when he doesn’t even flinch. His facial expressions don’t shift one bit, even though she knows him to be passionate and angry easily. 

Then he crosses the room in quick steps, and the toe of his boot connects with her side, right on top of her still-pulsing injury, the injury that _he’d_ caused, and everything makes more sense.

She sucks in a startled breath, slumping forwards in her chains. 

His boot comes up again, but the kick she expected doesn’t come. Instead, he nudges her cheek, getting her to look at him. He kneels into a crouch and growls,

“Were we friends when you led your shield buddies right to me, when you were willing to throw me to the wolves and leave me all alone in China with nothing but that God-awful bracelet,” she holds eye-contact with him, refusing to acknowledge the power he has over her in their current positions.

He glares a second longer, then leans back a bit, still in a crouch to be level with her.

“But you can make up for all that. I know that Shield didn’t treat you well either. So why help them, even now? Why not help _us_ ,” she shakes her head disapprovingly. 

“You know my philosophies better than anyone,” her voice scrapes her throat, her words quiet and dangerous, a snake coiled tightly in on itself.

He just laughs, albeit nervously. He knows her, knows her mannerisms, and spots the veiled threat, the unsaid words. She can tell he’s at least a bit unsettled, because for all that he knows her she knows _him _.__

__“If that’s how it is...,” he stands up, cutting a threatening figure, at least while she’s still kneeling on the ground, utterly helpless, as he looms over her._ _

__The chains binding her wrists yank and she stumbles forward._ _

__“We’ll get it out of you eventually,” the words don’t have any of his normal passion behind him; they’re the words of a man with the confidence that he _will_ be getting what he wants. It’s a formidable tone from a formidable man, and her stomach drops._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Skye.... she's not going to be having a very fun time throughout these next few chapters :)
> 
> You can thank my sister @Science_MonkeyMan for this chapter, she bribed me with drugstore lollipops, and also thank you to DaisySimmonsfor proofreading!
> 
> As always comments and kudos make my day and feel free to point out any errors, grammatical or otherwise.


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